Page 7 of A Reign of Malice (Wolves of Lunara #3)
CHAPTER SIX
THE FATED MATE
S he’s here. I know neither her name nor her face, but I feel her. In every ragged breath I take, in the beat of my fractured heart. She’s so close. Close enough to breathe life into the hollow shell I’ve become.
Years—or perhaps decades? Centuries?—have passed in this wretched darkness, but now, a flicker of light stirs within me.
A guttural roar tears from my throat, echoing through the cavernous void. My voice fills the air, raw and desperate, but no one will hear me. No one ever does.
My wrists bleed where the shackles bite into my skin, the chains never seeming to give way, no matter how fiercely I fight back.
The links rattle as I pull against them, as I’ve done every day since being damned to this prison.
The marks they leave are no longer wounds but scars, permanent reminders of the life stolen from me.
For years, I’ve wished for death, prayed for its mercy, but the gods haven’t granted me that freedom. And now, when I’m finally resigned to my fate, I feel her .
She’s so close.
I pull on my restraints as I’ve done many times before even though I know it’s pointless.
The runes on the walls around me glow dimly in response, their magic tightening like a noose. My body tenses, the same frustrations I’ve fought for centuries rising once more.
I snarl, the sound primal and resonant, but the walls absorb the noise, mocking me with their silence.
Please. Don’t turn away. Help me.
Her soul calls to mine, a tether forged by something greater than us both. I’ve sensed others close by before, but this is different. She’s not just passing by. It’s almost as if she’s searching.
I close my eyes, focusing on the feeble thread of her presence. It’s fragile, as though the magic binding me is trying to snuff it out. But even this darkness can’t hide her light, not when it calls to me so intensely.
You’re so close. I know you can find me.
The plea is silent, yet it ripples through the air, a desperate cry carried by whatever shred of power I have left. If she hears my words, if she feels me, then maybe—just maybe—there’s a chance at freedom. After all this time.
But doubt claws at me. Will she even care? I know nothing of this woman except that she’s my fated mate. She could be as despicable as the monster who trapped me here.
I slam my head back against the wall, the chains rattling. “No,” I growl, my voice a guttural rasp. “She won’t abandon me. She can’t.”
Because she’s mine .
The thought burns, a fierce, unrelenting fire that refuses to be extinguished. My reason to fight for my freedom, harder than I ever have before .
I lift my head, scanning the runes as they fade once more. They might keep me trapped, their magic unyielding, but I have something now that they can’t take away.
Hope.